State Capitols – Jackson, Mississippi

Mississippi Capitol in Jackson (16 May 2012)

Constructed: 1901-1903

Architects: Theodore Link

State Admitted to Union: December 10, 1817 - 20^th

State Population (2010): 2,967,297 - 31^st 

In May, I re-traced the journey taken on Road Trip I.  Just a few months into retirement in 2005, I drove to Louisiana to bowl in the USBC national tournament in Baton Rouge and visit my old New Orleans home.  The State Capitol Odyssey had not risen to the formal Quest it is now and I made modest documentation of the Tennessee and Mississippi capitols then.  This time, Road Trip VIII returned to Baton Rouge for the tournament and I was going to do the state houses right.  Too bad I didn’t know the Nashville building was going to be closed for a major renovation until 2013.  We’ll have to return there another time.

The image above is the new Mississippi capitol that opened in 1903 and replaced one that was completed in 1839.  The former capitol is a few blocks away and has been a museum since 1961.  It is in fine shape since it reopened in 2009, completely refurbished after being damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  We’ll do a separate presentation of that place in a later post.

Jackson’s is only the fourth capitol to be presented here and the second in that collection built with prison labor...this one is actually on the site of the former state penitentiary.  I know the sample size is small but the convict association resonates since one can imagine no small number of politicians who wind up in the joint...or ought to be.  On the other hand, I suspect the labor costs contributed to the modest price tag for the completed building – less than 1.1 million dollars.  The last significant renovation here, completed in 1982, cost $19,000,000.

Interior Detail of Mississippi Capitol (17 May 2012)

The visitor literature describes the architecture as a prime example of the Beaux Arts style.  I must quote the brochure to give a full sense of the ponderous vocabulary one encounters in this realm.  The capitol is “characterized on the exterior and interior by large and grandiose composition, symmetry, an abundance of classical detail, a variety of stone finishes, projecting facades, colossal columns, enriched mouldings, pronounced cornices, embellished entablatures and balustrades.”  Quite a mouthful.

Fish scale consoles beneath the gallery of the Mississippi 

House of Representatives (17 May 2012)

What makes this building’s interior stand out is an additional design element not available to earlier Beaux Arts structures.  The architect incorporated those new-fangled electric lights and over 4700 clear, glass bulbs line archways and other areas of the building.  It reminds me of one of those grand, old movie palaces...Now playing at the Palace-Majestic-Grand-Bijou Theater, ‘Gone with the Wind’. 

From the Ground Floor toward the Rotunda, Mississippi Capitol (17 May 2012)

I learned a new word on this visit - scagliola [“skal-YO-la”].  It refers to imitation marble or granite, made of gypsum mixed with glue and colors, then finely polished to look like all kinds of special stone.  The brochure says the Senate chamber alone has “Breccia violet, St. Baum, Egyptian and Pavanazzo” versions of scagliola. 

Senate Chambers, Mississippi Capitol, Jackson (17 May 2012)

I guess that while real stone might have been available, the full magnificence envisioned by the architect was not going to happen within that budget without faking some of it.  We spoke with the Sargent at Arms and he revealed a sad irony.  A hundred years later, repairs to this once common and inexpensive material are now quite expensive and difficult because there are few specialists who know how to work with it.

Mississippi House of Representatives, Jackson (17 May 2012)

Shot from the chamber gallery, this image was made by pasting 11 shots together.

The visit to Jackson and the old and current capitol was quite pleasant. The Jackson scene was strikingly harmonious and integrated.  I’m old enough to remember that Mississippi was the heart of the segregated South and so many of the tragedies of the Civil Rights Era happened there – Emmett Till; Medgar Evers; Cheney, Goodman & Schwerner; James Meredith.  Now, capitol employees of both races mingle and go about their work together.  Our dinner restaurant was a picture of regular social normalcy but would have created riots not all that many years ago.  It was reassuring to see how far we have come – even as we recognize how much further we have to go.